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3-D Asteroids Demo
Name:
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3-D Asteroids |
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Company: |
Atari |
Model #:
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N/A |
Programmer:
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John Seghers
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Year: |
1983 |
Released?
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No
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Notes:
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The title
screen simply says Asteroids
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As the name implies, 3-D Asteriods is a demo created by
John Seghers featuring 3-D Asteroids. According to John,
this demo was created in direct response to GCC's version of
Asteroids for the 7800 (then called 3-D Asteroids) which was
being created around the same time. John decided to throw
this demo together to show that the 5200 too
could do real 3-D looking asteroids. It's unknown if this
demo was intended to be a simple proof of concept or a idea for
a new game.
As this is just a proof of concept demo, there
really isn't much to do in this prototype. Clusters of 3-D
asteroids drift across the screen, spinning round and round.
After a short time they will begin to break apart into smaller and
smaller asteroids until the entire screen is full of tiny little
asteroids. After a little while longer the asteroids will
start to disappear one by one until the screen is empty, then the
demo will start again.
There's no interaction in this demo, all you can do
is watch the asteroids break apart until you shut it off.
While impressive, this demo has some oddities to it. The asteroids
have a weird a pink and green color scheme, which may be a result
of the graphics mode used. The asteroids also don't explode
when they break apart, the larger asteroid just disappears and the
next smaller asteroid appears. But being a proof of concept
demo, these quirks aren't unexpected.
Although this demo never resulted in an updated
version of Asteroids being created, it does show that the 5200 was
more than capable of pulling off a better version of Asteroids
than what was ultimately ported.
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to 5200 Software
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